After littering the "flyrod building" thread with non flyrod builds I figured I should share some work on a flyrod.
7wt Forecast Spey. The rod was already build nicely in grey with red trim but the owner wanted a little flare so I went to work. Smaller diameter blanks like this don't allow you to build a bold, central pattern, a pattern that wraps around the blank gets lost. For this wrap I went with a small compas rose style pattern and framed it with a fade. Fading a background is a greet way to make the most of a small diameter blank.
Sorry for the cel phone pics, couldn't find the camera

I've done diamonds and I almost had an American flag wrap completed (when it went to s**t), but I haven't done shadowing or a fade yet. I have a couple spin rods coming up...

Chris

Thanks the finished wrap is 30cm long (roughly 12") plus the tie offs. If you've done diamonds you can do these. I do my fades on five thread count for most blanks, 6 or 7 on very large offshore and bottom fishing rods. This is the pattern:
L= lighter thread D = darker thread
LLLLL
DLLLL
DDLLL
DDDLL
DDDDL
DDDDD
Then start over again with a darker shade. This pattern gives a pretty smooth transition. You can get 4 size A threads in one mm of space. Two colors with the above pattern will cover 7.5mm of space. Once you know the math, how much space your working with and how many shades you want to use you can adjust the pattern.